


It's so clear to me now

by RucyL



Series: The fine adventures of Alice Sycamore [1]
Category: Layton Kyouju Series | Professor Layton Series
Genre: A bit of drama in between because it's Desmond we're talking about, AU, Azran Legacy, Azran Legacy Spoilers, Character Death Fix, Gen, Happy Ending, Or maybe not as it doesn't contradict canon at any point, Post-Azran Legacy, Post-Canon Fix-It, Spoilers, aurora lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:34:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23829175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RucyL/pseuds/RucyL
Summary: Descole didn't stay behind Layton when leaving the Azran Sactuary to part ways in a dramatic fashion.Descole stayed behind Layton to save Aurora or die trying.And he did it, he saved her.
Series: The fine adventures of Alice Sycamore [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1831636
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	It's so clear to me now

The last thing Alice remembered before closing her eyes was her dad's hand touching her face, softly, gently.

Not even a minute later she woke up, feeling her dad's hand still in the same place. She smiled. He would never leave her side, she was certain.

Then Alice opened her eyes, and everything was wrong.

The man touching her face wasn't her dad! Wait, it was. Yeah, he was her dad, but he had longer hair and no glasses. He was frowning, examining her with great interest, which caused a wrinkle she had never seen before to appear between his eyebrows. He wasn't soft or gently at all. Her dad was wrong.

The room was also wrong. It wasn't the living room at home anymore, it was a room of the 'Old Boston'! She had never liked that name very much, as it didn't sound like the name of a ship, so she called it the 'Bostonius'. She always said it making the final 's' really long, and her mom would laugh at that. She began to wonder if she had been asleep for more than a minute.

Not-exactly-her-dad put his glasses back on, which caused him to look more like really-her-dad. He asked, "Alice?". He sounded like her dad, only sharper around the edges.

"Dad," she said, or rather tried to say. Her mouth was drier than it had ever been and her teeth were wrong too. She tried to speak again and ended up coughing. Likely-her-dad let go her face and grabbed her hand as he shouted to the door of the room. 

"Raymond, a glass of water, please!"

After a few seconds, she could breathe okay again, so she looked at her dad. He was looking at her with love, because that how he always looked at her. He was holding her left hand with both of his, and on seeing this, Alice realized her own hand was wrong. It was pale. Way paler that her dad's. She had inherited her skin colour —and everything that wasn't her eyes— from her mom, so her skin had always been a bit darker than her dad's. 

Uncle Raymond entered the room with a tray that had a glass of water on top. He hurriedly offered it to her dad, who took it and got it near her lips. She grabbed the glass with her wrong, pale hands and slowly sipped out of it. She soon drank the whole thing and returned the glass to her dad, who returned it to uncle Raymond's tray. She tried talking again.

"Thanks," she said, and she sounded wrong. She sounded calm and peaceful and patient, a bunch of things she wasn't. Her dad must have seen in her face that she was confused, because he grabbed her hand again.

"Hello, Alice."

"Dad," she called. Her dad smiled in a way that looked like he was about to cry, but she knew he wasn't, because her dad never cried. "What is going on? Why is everything different?"

"Sweetie, do you remember the Detragan?"

Alice nodded, confused. How could she not remember it when she had just used it?

"Yeah. It's your machine, we use every Saturday. Mom says it protects us from bad guys."

"That's right. The Detragan protected us. It did its job right, because there are no more bad guys anymore." He smiled, and Alice mirrored his expression. "Do you know how it works?"

She shaked her head with energy. She had asked a lot of times, but her dad wouldn't tell her. She was anxious to know.

"It's like a teleport from a movie. A bit ago, you were at home, but it teleported you to the Bostonius, away from the bad guys."

"What about mom? Is she being teleported too?"

Her dad breathed deep before answering, staring at their hands.

"Of course, she'll be here in a few weeks," he answered, as he changed the way he was sit to lean closer to her. He lowered his voice, so she knew what she was being told was a big secret. "Now, the Detragan is better than any other teleport. Because other teleports just take you far, but when the Detragan teleports you, it changes how you look, so the bad guys can't find you anymore."

"Like in that show about the alien that teleports in a police box?"

"Exactly like that show."

She grinned. Her life was becoming an adventure like those of her favourite stories! She couldn't wait to find out how she looked! Alice hoped she was taller and her hands were stronger. They were definetely bigger, she noticed upon examining them.

"Can I look?" she asked, pointing to a big mirror hanging in the wall.

"Of course," said her dad. He raised his hands to take the Detragan helmet off her, but she was faster. Alice lifted it without problems, establishing without a doubt that her hands were stronger. She was loving it!

Standing up was a bit more difficult, and her dad had to hold her arm. Her feet were soooo below her and, even if her dad was still taller than her, he had definetely shrunk a bit. She made her way to the mirror with a little help and looked at the image before her.

She looked exactly like always.

Wait, no, she didn't! She was taller, paler, blonder, older. Her freckles were gone, which upset her a bit, but it was okay, because she loved how her new hair was long and curly, just like the princesses in the fairytales. She was even wearing a dress! Before her dad could stop her, she spinned around and the dress raised, as if she was in a movie. Except now she looked at it, it was old and it had stains and was even broken in some places. Her excitement for the dress dropped and shattered.

"Are there any other clothes I can change into?"

That question took professor Sycamore by surprise. He turned around to look at uncle Raymond, who raised an eyebrow as if saying "Why are you asking _me_?". Her dad turned back and started thinking out loud.

"Let's see... I dropped all of Layton's stuff at Froenborg, so no help from there. Wait. I think Angela's dress might be still somewhere, though. Raymond, if you would be so kind to go look for it."

"Aye, Master." He quickly exited the room, taking the tray and the glass with him. Alice frowned, deep in thought. Something her dad had just said had ringed a bell, ignited an idea.

"What about my clothes?" she asked, looking at her new image in the mirror.

"Your clothes were at home, sweetie. This is the Bostonius."

"I know! I mean my other clothes, the ones I wore here. You know, the ones Emmy bought for me."

The professor stared at her in disbelief.

"What?"

Alice only just realized what she had said. How did she know Emmy? When had she bought clothes for her? Her brain provided answers in the form of memories. 

"We traveled the world together, but only after we stopped at London to buy some clothes. We met Luke's mom there," her brain said. 

But it also said "The only time I was at London was when Mom took me to a lecture Dad was giving. He explained the story of the Spectre, except he told it in a really boring way, not like when he read it to me at night. We had to leave early because there were bad guys looking for us."

"The bad guys are called Targent and they are after Azran artifacts that I must protect. At all costs."

"Not protect, but search for! When I grow up I'm going to follow Dad in his adventures. We will make all the bed time stories come true and maybe even write some more."

"Yes, like the bed time stories Luke told me! He was really good at them. He always had Professor Layton protect him in those. I wondered if professor Sycamore would protect me too."

"Yes, Dad would protect me in all of our adventures."

"I believe in Professor Sycamore. He is a good person at heart."

She hadn't noticed, but the professor had moved and was firmly holding her arms. She must have been lost in her thoughts for quite a while.

"...A-Aurora?"

"I'm Alice, dad. It's so clear to me now," she asserted, smiling warmly. "Aurora lives in here". She touched her chest with so much care and her dad seemed to relax a bit.

Then, her expression abruptly changed. 

She said, "Oh," and her dad looked at her intensely, trying to hide his worry.

"Oh," she echoed, her voice lower this time.

"Sweetie?"

"Luke told me," Alice murmured. "One night, he told me about the Detragan. He told me how it worked, and what was it built for."

And her dad broke.

Upon realising Alice knew all the truth, Desmond Sycamore broke.

He felt to his knees and sobbed and sobbed.

He grabbed her hands and, with his head lowered, he repeated time and time again.

"I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry."

" _I'm sorry_ "

Alice didn't know what to do, because her dad was doing things she had thought he'd never do. Aurora's experience in this world didn't help either. So she stood without moving, quiet, watching her dad cry. After what seemed an eternity to her, similar to the one she had spent trapped in ice, waiting silently for her dad to wake her up, he spoke again.

"You were so young."

"I am so young," she replied, her voice full of purpose. "I am eight years old, I am sixteen years old, I am one million years old. I am Alice Sycamore and I am the Azran Emmisary. And that's okay. That's okay."

Her dad looked up at her.

"Please don't leave me again."

Alice kneeled, holding her dad's hands close to her heart. Her eyes started filling with tears she could barely hold back.

"Then, take me with you. Show me the world. _Please._ "

A brief expression of confussion crossed her dad's face but was rapidly changed to the happiest smile Desmond Sycamore had shown in decades.

"Of course. Of course, yes I will. Let's go on an adventure together, Alice!"

"Yes!!" she cried, and threw herself into her dad's arms.

And he hugged her tightly, kissed her hair and her forehead several times and they danced, laughed, cried merrily, for after all the sadness, after all these years, Desmond Sycamore and her daughter could finally explore the world together.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed it. Alice is a very dear character of mine and I love to share her origin story with the world. <3


End file.
